October 2005 Archives

During my normal daily perusal of random university student papers online, I came across this one that might be of interest. (Actually, thanks to a tall, dark correspondent who prefers to remain blameless.) The Oil-for-Food scandal is rocking the world right now, so why not the chess world? We knew that FIDE Prez Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (freshly re-"elected" in Kalmykia) was in tight with Saddam Hussein back in the good old days. I don't know if he still keeps the famous photo of him up in his office though. There were various stories on Kirsan's involvement in Iraq, but the release of the full report has cleared up a few things. The following is from a chart of "Selected Individual Recipients of Oil Allocations" from the report Oil for What? – Illicit Iraqi Oil Contracts and the U.N. Security Council by Paul Heaton, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Economics, University of Chicago. (Page 20, pdf format.)

The visit to Uday was mentioned here. I wonder if Hallmark makes a "sorry about your torture-fiend maniac buddy getting blown away by the Marines" card. Three million barrels, not too shabby. At fifty bucks a barrel and rising you can fund a few knock-outs with change left over to buy Lenin's body and invite the Dalai Lama over for tea. I'm sure it had nothing at all to do with all the nice things Ilyumzhinov had to say about Hussein. Maybe he'll be a character witness at his trial.

Ukrainian genius/lunatic Vassily Ivanchuk sets what must be some sort of record by being listed as a participant in four tournaments on the TWIC homepage at the same time. (Karabakh, Samba Cup, Casino de Barcelona, World Team Ch) Chukky could hit over 30 games in 40 days depending how many games he plays in the Team Championship starting tomorrow. He started with two lacksidaisical performances before winning in Barcelona with 4/5. Unless he racks up some big scores he'll end up dropping most of the points that shot him up to his current #5 position. In this he's like another cardiogram rating chart star, Morozevich. It will be nice to see Ivanchuk back at Corus in January, let's hope he brings his A game.

As I mentioned in the comments the other day, the ACP has finally made a statement about FIDE's rule changes, published as a reply to Gata Kamsky's open letter. The changes in format from semifinal and final matches to a San Luis-style tournament came as a surprise to them too, which is no surprise. There was a notable absence of suggestions and no mention of action. Nice to see they got an extra day for tiebreaks in Siberia.

FIDE is still enamored of anything that can get sporadic sponsorship from regional government instead of trying to develop something commercially viable. This is to be expected with a politician in charge; Ilyumzhinov knows politicians. It would be interesting, if not essential, to see someone with corporate and commercial sponsorship experience on the job, either as president or in a role inside FIDE with actual authority.

Dutch champ Loek van Wely speaks out in the same article. I'm always happy to see anyone involved in the process and I too was curious as to why the Dutch team isn't in the World Team event this week. I'm stunned by his suggestion that only the World Cup winner should go to the final championship tournament, and that other qualifiers could come from annual supertournaments like Corus and Linares. Those events are hardly less exclusive than the rating list itself. It's one thing for pro organizers to invite only the biggest names, but FIDE needs to make sure everyone gets a shot in a way that rating doesn't matter. But I'm glad van Wely repeats the most essential thing of all, the need for clear rules and transparency.

[With his title defense four months away we offer these remarks from 2005 US Champion Hikaru Nakamura. Did we mention that he's also a contributor to the ChessNinja Black Belt newsletter? Yeah, we probably did.]

Hello everyone! It is rather discouraging to see the current state of chess in the United States. It is sad how ever since the golden days of Fischer the US has failed to produce any "superstar" chess players. By far and away the best US-produced players are probably Seirawan, Benjamin, Christiansen, and myself. What is the reason for this?

I remember when I first started playing chess that it was all about winning games and trophies. Eventually it was about winning and making money, but even though I've made my fair share of money over my ten years of playing chess, it is nowhere near enough to live comfortably. Because everyone must fight to make a living, this leads to a lot of discord amongst players. With the chess pool in the US as small as it already is, almost no one can succeed unless there is support. Unfortunately, our dog-eat-dog chess society does not pride itself on supporting up-and-coming chess talents. Why would anyone want to play chess forever if they have to deal with such issues? I know I wouldn't.

The blame should fall squarely on the USCF for their lack of professionalism towards promoting the great game of chess. Chess Life is reporting about tournaments from a few months earlier; the website is outdated except for the MSA (Member Services Area), and they don't promote chess. What more can you ask for?

AF4C, on the other hand, has solid sponsorship behind the US Championship and is run very professionally. Is it coincidental that AF4C has managed to secure the US Championship for the next 8 or 9 years? AF4C has shown that if promoted correctly it is quite possible to have many benefactors who will willingly donate to the game. In my opinion, US chess interests would be better served if AF4C were in control of American chess. Unfortunately, it seems that the big-wig bureaucrats at the USCF aren't attempting to further chess, but to protect their own interests.

Now, a last little note on the US Championship. I think that this idea of breaking the championship into two separate groups is a horrible idea. If two players win their respective groups, they will not have to play the same competitors or a level field. This will undoubtedly lead to a questionable winner no matter who wins the playoff. I hope that AF4C is not sacrificing quality for quantity just to try and make chess more "marketable."

US Champion
Hikaru Nakamura

AF4C President Erik Anderson and US Champion Hikaru Nakamura

The first round of the 2005 World Team Championship is on Tuesday, November 1 in Beer Sheva, Israel. It's a powerful field and Russia and Ukraine have sent top-level teams including Svidler, Morozevich, Grischuk, Ivanchuk, Ponomariov, and Karjakin. Russia, with largely the same team, will feel pressure to make up for their disastrous 14th place at the Euro Teams a few months ago. Gelfand and Sutovsky lead the home team. Cuba is there for the Americas and the USA got a special invitation after not sending a team to the Americas team championship.

Many were alarmed upon seeing that, as at the Olympiad, the top two American players aren't on the team. No outdated protocols were involved this time, however. Gata Kamsky and Hikaru Nakamura were both approached and declined to go. Kamsky led the US team to a mighty gold medal upset in this event at Lucerne in 1993. (Benjamin's +4 was vital.) Kaidanov and Gulko played then and are back this time on a team led by Onischuk.

Well, somebody should. US #1 Gata Kamsky has written an open letter about FIDE's recent last-minute changes to the 2005-07 championship cycle. Many of his comments have been addressed here, including the travesty of seeding half the players into the matches and another group into the final instead of qualifying. He also points out the typically unrealistic October 31 FIDE deadline for players to send in their contracts. That leaves no room for debate at all, despite FIDE's claims that these changes were influenced by discussions with the San Luis players and the ACP. None of the players I've talked to so far could confirm this, but of course it makes sense for the super-elite in San Luis to be in favor of rating seeds.

What is alarming, and highlighted by Kamsky's comments, is how few players say anything about such irresponsible and disrespectful behavior from FIDE. The ACP is supposed to be a player voice but has said nothing officially about whether or not they approve of FIDE's sudden change to make the cycle much less democratic. They've posted brief comments by Khalifman, who is sage as always. Was the ACP co-opted into this? The ACP is at least acting as though they - and most of their members - did not know about the changes in advance. This is just the sort of thing they should jump on, and at least they need to clarify how much they were involved in this process. Bizarrely, the ACP website reproduces the FIDE release verbatim, including the part that says the changes considered discussions with the ACP! No comment?!

Update: FIDE has added a baffling reply at the bottom of the same article. I don't see how it can be called transparency if nobody talked about the changes before they were announced. We don't expect transparency from FIDE, sadly, but if there were talks the ACP should have kept us up to date. As for 10 players versus 5, that's good news money-wise to an extra five players, but it's a misleading statistic when it comes to having a fair shot at the title. You could put 100 players into candidate matches and the bottom line is it's still for only four spots in the final while four others are dropped in free of charge from San Luis. Why should the San Luis players get such a huge jump up the ladder, especially since almost all of them were invited there without qualifying to begin with? If we are stuck with a tournament instead of matches, there must be seven qualifiers plus Topalov and the ACP should fight for this. And Topalov gets to keep his lucky chair, but that's as far as I'll go.

Update 2: ChessBase has moved things around and added a separate item with FIDE's response with a reply to that by Kamsky. As mentioned below, FIDE's idea of transparency doesn't include telling the players actually IN the World Cup about all these changes made before giving them one week to sign on.

There a nice official website for the World Cup. Round 1 is on November 27. With Topalov's withdrawal from the field, first reserve Nigel Short is in.

Topalov has been well received and heartily hailed in his homeland. This article from the Bulgarian news service - always with charming translations - says Ilyumzhinov has posited Bulgaria as a possible host to the 2007 world championship tournament. This is just happy talk of course; money talks and FIDE walks. The article has links at the bottom to two other items about Topalov's homecoming. They mention that he is only visiting Bulgaria but not that he has lived in Spain for many years (as has Anand). It's nice that neither Bulgaria nor India begrudge their heroes' choice of residence. No doubt this is helped by how both Topalov and Anand have actively promoted chess in their home nations. Maybe Spain has something to complain about instead. Nah.

[The current surge in traffic and comments has coincided with a dodgy upgrade of this blog system. I haven't seen many errors myself lately, but I understand some people are still getting "internal server error" every once in a while when they post a comment. (No need to repost usually, it just delays appearance.) I don't have time to deal with a full reinstall right now, so thanks for your patience. If you are getting any consistent errors (i.e., you can reproduce them), let me know. I'm waiting till the weekend for the reinstall.]

I've long suspected that FIDE has weapons of match destruction and now we have more evidence. At the start of May this year FIDE shocked us all by announcing a classical world championship cycle. December's world cup would lead to candidates matches and eventually to a world championship match against the San Luis winner. It was a welcome turnaround after years of KO events that received uneven and occasionally unethical sponsorship. The long-match tradition led to great events that attracted global attention and made chess and its champion something special.

After the putative success of the San Luis world championship event, however, FIDE has lost interest in world championship matches. They just released new guidelines for the 2005-07 cycle and the main change is that the semifinal and final matches have disappeared, replaced by a final eight tournament like San Luis. FIDE claims this was done after talking to the ACP and the San Luis players, which would be even more shocking than the changes. (They have put the new version of the regulations at the old link, but I saved the original Word file if you want to compare.) This illustrates one of the often discussed fears of title unification under FIDE. They have no respect whatsoever for classical chess or the championship lineage. Even worse, they lie about it, as we can see from this spontaneous rule change.

Losing the world championship match is the worst part. We have tournaments like San Luis regularly already and the championship should be unique. We got lucky in San Luis with Topalov's domination. Next time it could be a three-way tie at +2 with rapid and blitz playoffs, a revolting way to pick a world champion if it's supposed to be the classical world championship. It's true, however, that the recent history of long matches is one of tight sponsorship, short draws, and less-than-scintillating chess. In the modern era of ultra-deep preparation, SEC, and ever-stronger players, long matches aren't going to be that thrilling unless we get very lucky as to the players.

A truly foolish thing is that the entire cycle will only add four players to the next world championship tournament. The other four come from San Luis. (Topalov, Anand, Svidler, Morozevich) This is exactly contrary to the point. It should be seven, not four. The other three should be put into the qualifying matches as originally planned. A mere 50% tournover is horribly anti-democratic and also anti-fighting chess. Shirov says similar on the ACP site but I haven't seen any official ACP response or comments from qualified players. Generally they prefer tournaments because it increases their chances. Match play is incredibly exclusive, which is a blessing and a curse.

A final bizarre twist is at the end of the guidelines, where FIDE says it is considering "interim World Championship matches." Basically anyone over 2700 can buy a match with the champion. FIDE has a veto, the champion apparently does not. Long live the Elista Rules, building a bridge to the 19th century.

Resisting the urge to scoop myself (why does that sound dirty?), I waited until I finished updating the US Championship website before breaking the news here. First off, the dates have pushed back a week so the opening ceremony is on February 28 and the first round is on March 1. They wanted the time to make sure construction on the venue is completed with plenty of time to avoid the Elista Olympiad syndrome. It's early enough that this shouldn't bother anyone but me. Changing the images and other things on the site is a pain.

[On the other hand... IM Irina Krush points out below that "the new US Championship dates clash with the dates for the Women's World Championship that have been on the FIDE website for months (March 10-27, 2006)." Those dates are listed as tentative, but it would be a real shame to have America's best women be forced to miss one of these events. I don't yet know who would be playing in Ekaterinburg.]

The seeds have been announced, the 14 players who qualify directly by rating. The eight overall spots include four who have already qualified in tournaments, which means three spots go back to the tournaments. After some figgering, this puts John Fedorowicz, Josh Friedel, and Blas Lugo into San Diego through the back door. See you in San Diego, gentlemen!

The official write-up is still forthcoming, but the more interesting news is a twist in the format. The field will be broken up into two groups of 32, both nine-round swisses. The top finisher in each group will go to a final rapid match to decide the title. This is a "made for TV" final day idea; there will also be a women's final match. Details will be posted soon.

Garry Kasparov's latest New In Chess column (#7/2005) is themed on young players. He touches on the Needleman affair, Nakamura's Qh5 repertoire, and the dearth of young Russian talent.

The "mostly unwarranted" at the top refers to the attention being paid to the openings and the resignations, not Nakamura. As in, "who cares, let him play chess." Just to clarify. Meanwhile, in a recent issue of Black Belt, long before Kasparov's remarks, Hikaru took his punishment like a man before annotating his win over Mamedyarov.

Well, at least it sounds like we won't see Qh5 against the Sicilian again anytime soon. Hikaru just got back from Armenia where he finished equal second in the category 17 Karabakh tournament. Yesterday he played a six-board blindfold match (6-0) at an prestigious art gallery here in NY that is opening a cool exibition of famous chess sets. I saw most of them in Philly at a special exhibit a few years ago.

Nothing surprising, just thought we should have a new thread now that I've posted these brief comments by Kramnik at ChessBase responding to Topalov putting the smackdown on a unification match. I agree with those who say that Topalov's suddenly strident turn against a Kramnik match is as much a ploy as anything and that if the right offer comes along he'll come to the table. Topalov's bizarre comments about a 60-point rating gap are hard to see as anything but smoke. "You need me more than I need you" is the way these things have gone in recent years.

Lots of interesting stuff in the comments to yesterday's item on Topalov's comments. Included was a link to this tidbit from the Russian news service Interfax. These little things are often out of context and spurious, but as it reads, it's confusing and/or bad.

Huh? This is the first mention of such a tournament I've seen. FIDE's original announcement, reinforced with other details later, was simply that World Cup players would enter candidates matches against the top San Luis finishers, with Topalov entering in the semifinals. Now it's to qualify for a "world championship" in Moscow? This doesn't explicitly say tournament or anything else about the format, however. Perhaps the success of San Luis has made Ilyumzhinov lose his memory, or his grip on reality. This is just the sort of thing we've been worried about, that FIDE would talk classical to concrete the title and then start up the circus music again. (Kirsan was just essentially reappointed dictator of Kalmykia by Putin, so his grip on FIDE won't be loosened in that way.)

...that Kramnik doesn't deserve to play a world championship match. Topalov seems to be whistling a tune quite different from the one sung by his manager Danailov last week. In this Sport Express interview (in Russian) Topalov says he doesn't see why he should give a title shot to someone ranked only #7 on the rating list and rated 60 points below him, especially since Kramnik had the opportunity to play in San Luis and declined. No mention of the classical title. He goes on to say that if they do play it will probably only be a money match with no title on the line. (The two million Kirsan mentioned.) That would be a waste of time, of course.

Garry Kasparov has some thoughts on the matter too. No, he's not going to play Topalov, and he doesn't think the Bulgarian should bother with Kramnik. He'll explain his views in depth in his next column in New In Chess magazine. In sum: "the schism is over." The official title has melded with the strongest player for the first time since 1993, so the theory goes, so it's time to embrace him and move on.

I would still prefer a unification match if Kramnik can come up with the money. If he can't, and FIDE continues to find funding for its new classical cycle, the Kar-Kas-Kram line will die with the third K. Three strikes, you're out.

Or bits and bobs if you prefer. A brace of little items to play catch-up on that wacky chess thing this blog is supposed to be about.

GM missing, sort of. Peruvian Grandmaster Julio Granda Zuñiga was reported missing a week ago. The Peruvian newpapers managed to work themselves into quite a tizzy until family said he was okay eight days later. There had been reports of mental problems (not the first time) but now they say he's just stressed and needed to get away for a while. He should move to Beverly Hills. This isn't the first time the GM/farmer has vanished mysteriously. In 1998 he was kidnapped and beaten after publicly quitting a political group and later retired from chess to farm. He returned in 2002 to play regularly and maintain a 2600 level.. The 38-year-old recently qualified for the FIDE World Cup.

US champion Hikaru Nakamura finished equal 2-3 in the category 17 Karabakh tournament, finishing ahead of big names like Ivanchuk, Dreev, and Bologan, beating the latter two. There's an interview with Hikaru at the official site, part one and part two. I'm sure he'll have some comments in his annotated game for Black Belt next month.

We expect to have a full on-site report up soon at ChessBase.com, but I'll mention Magnus Carlsen's best result since he made a splash at Corus last year. The Norwegian wunderkind has been lagging a bit, but scored 8/9 at the Gausdal tournament last week for a performance rating of nearly 2800. Fairly weak opposition by Karjakin / Nakamura standards, but Carlsen, just 14, is a few years younger yet.

New FIDE world champion Veselin Topalov won't be playing in the Nov. 26-Dec. 17 World Cup. "'I don't think I will join the World cup championship. In the near future I plan to take a rest and write a book,' Topalov told Russian daily Sport Express."

If you're interested in being rich and famous, send in your photo wearing/holding some of our spiffy ChessNinja.com swag. That way you'll have some cool stuff and I'll have a list of people who may someday be rich and famous.

But seriously folks, the shop has had orders from the USA, Brazil, Portugal, and Germany, so we're taking over the world at last, bwah hah hah! I'll set up a gallery of all the handsome and beautiful people proud to say to the world that losing sucks.

(I get laughs whenever I wear my logo sweatshirt here in NY. But that may be because I also wear a floppy jester hat.)

Just so you know there isn't a mind-control substance embedded in the logo that I will activate from afar like the Manchurian webmaster, here's a photo of my very own nephew, Roman, previously hyped here when he was far tinier. Now he's an adorable, massive, and brilliant eight-month-old, and by far the most fashionably attired tot around.

As for his chess training, he's already through the Seirawan series for beginners and is well on his way to chewing, sucking, and gumming his way through Dvoretsky. He's just getting his first tooth in now, so his training is really set to take off.

Sorry to all who have been receiving errors, especially with the comments. I upgraded the blog to Movable Type 3.2. That should be "upgrade" since it's been a nightmare, compounded by changing the databases over to MySQL, which caused a passel of errors on its own. And then there are all the much-touted anti-comment-spam features of 3.2, which, all three of them combined, have allowed more spam through in two days than we saw in a year with 3.1 using the Blacklist plugin (which, of course, doesn't work with 3.2). Working on that, too. So bear with, please. I think the comments are working again now, at last. Mail me with any problems.

More from my dozens of gigabytes of 99%-unpublished chess photos. (You can find the others by using the search with 'pics'.) You should be able to recognize all of the players in this horribly backlit photo from the 2002 Prague Eurotel rapid tournament VIP room. [GM Lubomir Kavalek, who was commenting on the games on a demo board behind me, says the woman in the picture is the Mrs. Sokolov.]

You can view larger versions of the same photo here: 800x600 / 1200x900.

My reports, interviews, and many more photos from that event, which was followed by the famous-if-fruitless Prague unification meeting, are at ChessBase in my columns #165, photos, #166, #167. #167 has a "blind" section (common in gossip columns) that you might have a guess at since it's long passed.

This interview in Russian at 64 with Topalov's longtime manager Silvio Danailov makes many positive noises about a potential Topalov-Kramnik match. (A match with Kasparov is mentioned in the same breath as also being "interesting" to Topalov.) Kramnik is mentioned as being in the historical line of champions and Danailov says "we reject privileges." Danailov adds that Kramnik likely wouldn't have scored more than +2 in San Luis, which is beside the point even if it is hard to disagree with.

November (06 I assume) is given as the earliest possible date for such a match, although what that could mean for the FIDE cycle that starts this December is far from clear. Topalov comments that it depends on FIDE and finding sponsorship, and that it's up to Danailov and Kramnik's manager Carsten Hensel, who "have a good relationship." All in all, good news, although I wouldn't hold anyone to casual early comments like these. If your Russian is lacking you can translate online here or here.

Topalov, who was rarely heard from in interviews, continues to impress with his openness and humility. When asked about his chances in a potential match with Kasparov, he said he couldn't say what Kasparov's form would be like right now. But that "against Kasparov in top form, no one would have a chance." He continued by saying that Karpov and Kasparov were far above their contemporaries, something not true in his case. Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed, both FIDE champions are Bulgarian.

I awarded him the title a week ago, but now it's official. The 30-year-old Bulgarian GM is guaranteed clear first place with a round to spare. Fittingly enough, he locked it up with a draw against defending champion Kasimdzhanov, who eliminated Topalov in Libya last year. There is still something to play for in San Luis between Svidler and Anand, who meet in tomorrow's final round. The top finishers automatically qualify for the candidates matches. #2 goes to the quarters, #3 and #4 into the first round of 10. Not sure of the tiebreaks in play. 'Most wins' would make Anand #2 if he draws Svidler in the final round. Then there's a little matter of $50K between #2 and #3, which might cover the Svidler family diaper bills for a year.

Congratulations to Veselin, the very deserving winner. There is little doubt he has been both the best and most successful player in 2005. He will also be the top-rated active player on the list come January. His dominating victory in San Luis is a stroke of good fortune for FIDE and the chess world. If Kramnik can put money together and FIDE and Topalov want to play him, great. It's a loose end that should be tied up. But the chess world doesn't need Kramnik to have a legitimate champion, especially heading into a traditional classical cycle organized by FIDE.

I don't want this to sound anti-unification. Neither Topalov nor Kramnik have anything to lose by playing such a match if they can get money for it, perhaps in Bulgaria. As long as the winner is obligated to defend the title in the FIDE cycle, etc. That's the tricky part, can FIDE be trusted to honor the classical tradition and can the winner be trusted to honor FIDE and the cycle? Topalov will have to defend his FIDE title in the semifinals soon enough anyway, so why not go for all the marbles and try to become the 15th World Champion? I bet "Capablanca.. Botvinnik.. Kasparov.. Topalov" sounds a lot better than "Khalifman.. Ponomariov.. Kasimdzhanov.. Topalov". Nothing personal to those esteemed players, but it's got to be true. Even if he loses to Kramnik Topalov should be seeded into the semis, seems a reasonable deal.

[Apologies for the slowdown around here. Been terribly busy with writing that actually pays me. Hope to get caught up by the end of the weekend, but things are going to be sporadic until mid-November.]

Hey, remember Karabakh? Of course you do. It's the category 17 with Ivanchuk, Aronian, and Nakamura taking place in Armenia right now. The final round has shaped up to be an exciting one, albeit with some complicating factors. Before the 7th round China's Bu Xiangzhi had to leave the tournament due to his father's health crisis and his last three games are forfeit. I met Bu in NY in 2000 and wish him and his family well.

This gives free points to Nakamura, Bologan, and Sokolov. The latter two are already out of the running, but the US champion won his next game against Alexei Dreev to move within a half point of the leader, Aronian. (Top seed Ivanchuk has been stuck in first gear and is on -1.) Today's final round sees Aronian-Nakamura, so a win with black would make our own Black Belt newsletter contributor the winner of the tournament, an equal first if Anastasian also wins. Beating an in-form 2700 with black isn't exactly a walk in the park, but it's been an excellent international result for Hikaru no matter what happens in the final round. A 2700+ result against this powerful veteran field shows that the next level is already here.

r11 pairings: Adams-Topalov 1/2, Anand-Kasimdzhanov 1-0, Svidler-Morozevich 1-0, Polgar-Leko 1/2. Been too busy to keep up around here. Topalov still cruising far about the atmosphere. He even eschewed a draw against Morozevich yesterday before missing a win. This is the second time he's drawn two pawns up. When talking to Kasparov about the games I suggested that perhaps Topalov was preparing for a Terry Chapman match. Polgar has flamed out entirely, failing even in the sharp positions she usually excels in.

r10 pairings: Topalov-Morozevich 1/2, Kasimdzhanov-Polgar 1-0, Leko-Svidler 1/2, Adams-Anand 1/2. Topalov still leads by two full points after nine rounds. Morozevich has won three in a row and could make things interesting. We all knew Moro would rock the house at some point. If only he could do this for an entire tournament instead of a few games at a time. We're still focusing our positive energy to get Mickey his first win of the event after all the fighting chess he has played. Plus, Anand deserves a spanking after yesterday's lame punt against Topalov.

r9 pairings: Anand-Topalov 1/2, Polgar-Adams 1/2, Svidler-Kasimdzhanov 1/2, Morozevich-Leko 1-0. Going into the ninth round Topalov leads by two points over Svidler with 7/8.

If Topalov the topadora is going to be slowed down with enough time left for it to matter, today is the day. Anand is coming off a win and a free day and has white; can't get more momentum than that and he has nothing to lose. Svidler will be looking to pick up ground against the fading Kasimdzhanov, whose wheels came off in the second half of Linares this year. Moro has won two in a row and is capable of anything. Tail-enders Polgar and Adams may just split a short Petroff point or fight for the cellar in a Marshall.

January 13-29, Wijk aan Zee. Official site. A powerhouse group as always. Only current top tenners not there are Svidler and Polgar. Aronian and Bacrot get their elite credentials checked. Karjakin gets to show if he's ready for prime time. Top-rated American Gata Kamsky will play in his first supertournament in ten years. He was rock-solid in the Continental Championship a few months ago and will have to kick it up another notch here. An even score in this crowd would be a major achievement.

A Group: Topalov, Anand, Leko, Ivanchuk, Kramnik, Bacrot, Aronian, Adams, Gelfand, Tiviakov, Sokolov, Kamsky, Karjakin, van Wely. Nothing about the B and C groups yet. The B group has steadily become a very strong and interesting tournament in its own right. After his amazing play in San Luis (yes, I know the tournament is still going), will anyone pick against Topalov until he shows he's human?

Heh, the item by Gert Ligterink currently on the homepage of the Corus site (in Dutch) shows he's on the ball. He mentions the "Kasparov passing the torch to Topalov in Linares" meme as heard from "an American chess-lover." I believe Jeremy first mentioned it in these terms in the comments to our round 5 item before I mentioned it two days ago.

Mart�n writes in to point out that the local San Luis newspaper I linked to earlier is occasionally printing many of the players' comments from the press conferences. (There's a browser resize, then a pop-up with a login required to enter. Triple score!) I'll cut them some slack since they are providing good coverage, including giant front page photos in the print edition.

These comments are from after round eight. One item is about the player complaint after round five, mentioned in Nigel Short's reports, about how Topalov always gets to sit in the same place. Leko, after round eight: "It's true that I presented a complaint, but not because of Topalov. It's just that at every tournament we change tables, but this doesn't have anything to do with him. He always has the same spot and the rest of us have to walk around looking for where to sit. I asked the arbiters if they would consider it. They didn't do anything, but I don't care anymore."

Leko did not go on to add, "and how about Kasimdzhanov's shoes? I mean, the same pair every single day, what's up with that?"

Topalov: "I'm not superstitious. I don't think a piece of furniture makes me win games. I also pressure them a little on the board." Heh. He also signed a lot of autographs, and stopped for a lot of photos, smiling.

Kasim, annoyed after his loss to Moro: "What happened to me was a well-deserved punishment for an unrealistic competitive attitude. But if I wanted to sleep I would have stayed at home."

Morozevich: "The best day of the tournament is the rest day. But I'm not going to use it all to rest because I have to continue preparing for what's to come."

Svidler: "I played a line I thought was interesting, regardless of what happened in Topalov's game. If anyone had chances it was Michael, I don't know why you're asking me. On move 16 I realized my position was very dangerous. Mickey rejected a repetition on move 20 because he was the one who was playing for a win.

Adams: "It was a very sharp game with a lot of calculating to do. I think I could reach a good position but it's hard to prove it. By our thinking, by our way of playing, it looked like Black was playing to win, but that's not the way it was."

Topalov: "I just came out to play, but we came to a complicated position and it worked out even, if a little boring. I prefer to win every time, but to score a half point when my opponent doesn't make a mistake is normal and it would be foolish to risk too much. Peter [Leko] played in a way I hadn't expected. I had prepared an idea but it didn't work because he surprised me first."

There is a rapid tournament today in San Luis. Along with local GMs Miguel Quinteros (one of the organizers) and Hugo Spangenberg (Huguito!), Nigel Short is expected to take part. If Nige doesn't win we are going to shame his sesquipedalian arse.

With some overheated fans comparing Veselin Topalov to Kasparov, Fischer, and Thor, the new FIDE champion downplayed such talk himself after his draw with Leko in round eight. "Please don't compare me to Fischer. I wouldn't even dare to say I'm superior to my rivals here. I'm just in good form right now, that's all." This in Spanish, as Topalov lives in Salamanca, which delights the Argentine journalists. (Anand also lives in Spain.)

Anand said that he's in a better mood now, after scoring his second win over Polgar, but that "oceans" still separate him and Topalov, and that even if he beats him in their individual game he would still probably have to win his five other games to reach the title. Yup. No reason to believe Topalov won't win another game.

If Topalov finishes with +6 or +7 it will definitely be one of the great tournament performances, although it's a bit early to chisel him into Rushmore with the likes of Fischer and Kasparov. At Linares, 1999 Kasparov scored +7 in a tournament a little stronger than this one (swap Polgar and Kasimdzhanov for Kramnik and Ivanchuk), with an oddly similar dominance with black. Adams finished -3 there too... Some are making hay out of the way some sort of torch seems to have been passed when Topalov beat Kasparov in the latter's last game before retirement. Don't know about that, but as I mentioned in the comments, I don't think it's a coincidence either. Kasparov himself said that some of the other players might have seen him as a "boulder in the road" that is now gone. I.e. it's hard to work 24/7 when you can only hope to be #2. The irony is that now Topalov is playing well enough to be a real match for Kasparov. Sac of the Magi.

At first I was thinking that Topalov's San Luis is even more impressive considering the circumstances, that it's a world championship and not just another tournament. Probably, although the situation seems to have negatively affected some of the other players.

r8 pairings: Topalov-Leko 1/2, Adams-Svidler 1/2, Anand-Polgar 1-0, Kasimdzhanov-Morozevich 0-1. After round seven, the halfway point, Topalov still leads by two full points, an unassailable lead unless A) Peter Svidler starts playing like Topalov has been playing and B) Topalov is hit by a train. I added some light notes at the top of the r7 ChessBase report.

After this third loss, when asked if his disastrous match against Hydra had perhaps affected his form, Mickey Adams quipped, "I'm having more trouble with humans than with computers." Btw, after so many people posted kind comments lamenting Mickey's poor run of form, I sent him a note passing them on (along with some recommendations on Argentine Malbec). I'm sure he'll appreciate the thoughts.

Anyone for seconds? It took half the tournament, but I finally got some Dirt on who the players' seconds are. Not definitive, but a start. Only real surprise is Beliavsky with Moro.

-Topalov is with IM Silvio Danailov (manager) and young GM Ivan Cheparinov, both also Bulgarian.
-Anand is with Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen and his wife Aruna. (Anand's wife, not occasional Dirt poster PHN's.)
-Leko is with trainer/father-in-law GM Arshak Petrosian of Armenia and his wife Sofie. (Again, PETER's wife, Arshak's daughter. Are you getting this down?)
-Svidler is with former Russian champion Alexander Motylev. No wife.
-Morozevich has GM Alexander Beliavsky and appears to be hanging out with IM Vladimir Barsky, who is filing reports with the Russian mag 64.
-Adams is with long-time girlfriend Tara. (Not wife, also no second.)
-Polgar is with Romanian GM Mihai Marin. Her husband Gustav arrived today.
-Kasimdzhanov is there with his "mesmerizing" (quoth my spy) wife Firuza. I just saw a captioned pic of her recently and don't remember where. She's on the left in this one. Ah, one old one here. Also no visible second.

But not of FIDE. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has resigned as president of the Russian republic of Kalmykia. He wasn't scheduled to leave office until November, 2006 and first came to power in 1993 at the age of 30. His goofy official site.

[Update: As several people explained by email and as is described by Valchess below, this is most likely just a charade. Ilyumzhinov will probably be duly reappointed as president of Kalmykia after kissing some Kremlin tush. So, probably no story at all. So my trick about getting you all excited about him resigning was a double-whammy.]

Some prescience by Sadulayev, the political Chechen rebel leader, in June, 2005: "Next in line will be Kalmykia, where Putin, using the new law on the appointment of governors and heads of republics, intends to aggravate the situation and, using this as a pretext, to oust Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and replace him with his protegé."

Politics and chess politics have been tightly linked in the former Soviet countries and rumors of Ilyumzhinov being on the outs with Putin's administration had been going for a while. It seems unlikely that Ilyumzhinov will have to get a real job now, but we'll see whether he now puts more time into chess or less. FIDE has made a series of good moves lately and Ilyumzhinov has been sounding uncharacteristically conciliatory thanks to facing his first real challenge for the FIDE presidency in Karpov. It will be interesting to see what not having access to the Kalmykian treasury does to his level of influence.

r7 pairings: Topalov-Kasimdzhanov 1-0, Leko-Adams 1-0, Svidler-Polgar 1-0, Morozevich-Anand 1-0. Links to other coverage. Topalov leads by two full points after winning yet again in round six. He is amazing. The organizers should give him the trophy now. Of the eight games remaining he has white in five. It's over. Round nine, Anand-Topalov, will be the last possible chance of changing fate.

I've been up all night writing and fighting with a busted hard drive and smashing my finger in a window, so this will be brief. Polgar had a horrible lapse of judgment against Topalov's surprise Berlin with 20.g4?, allowing Black to open things up on the kingside and rapidly gain a winning advantage. Other games were drawn, but all were interesting. A tremendous tournament, almost a pity that first place has already been decided!

The comments are full of talk about Kramnik-Topalov (and Kasparov-Topalov?!). Certainly a crushing win like this one contributes to the FIDE champion's legitimacy. I.e., if it finished in a three-way tie for first at +2 and went to tiebreaks it would be much cloudier in public opinion. As I mentioned before, Topalov has the same manager, Silvio Danailov, as Ruslan Ponomariov had during the bizarre and catastrophic negotiations around Pono's various aborted matches with Kasparov in 2003. I want to think positive, however, so we'll have to wait and see what is said at the closing press conference, where Kramnik should be a topic. Of course nothing conclusive will be said or done unless a sack of money shows up.

r6 pairings/results: Polgar-Topalov 0-1, Anand-Svidler 1/2, Adams-Morozevich 1/2, Kasimdzhanov-Leko 1/2. Links to other coverage. After beating his closest rival in round five Topalov is now a preposterous 1.5 points ahead of the field. The other standings are irrelevant and will be until Topalov loses a game. +4 wins this tournament. Only Anand has what it takes to catch up, and that will require some help. Clarin called him the topadora, which means steamroller. Yup.

The same report (with pic of Topy) also makes mention of Topalov signing autographs for three girls near the lake. Maybe they heard about the $300K prize fund? Or maybe it's the goatee. (One of my favorite Spanish expressions is the name for Topalov's type of facial hair: candado, or "padlock." Describes it perfectly.)

What more can be said about Veselin Topalov? As with a few greats of the past, the Bulgarian's powerful chess is amplified in strength as his opponents crumble under his relentless pressure. Against Svidler he unleashed a piece sacrifice novelty of the sort we are becoming used to with him (see his games at the Mtel Masters). Svidler managed to survive into an endgame with two bad pieces for a rook and two pawns. Black was pressing hard when Svidler stepped into a fatal pin in time trouble, lost a key pawn for nothing, and soon resigned. Hardly hari-kiri after such expert swordsmanship by Topalov.

Morozevich worked some of his voodoo to recover from a terrible position and equalize against Polgar. (31.Ng5 looks very annoying, controlling e4 to stop Black from blocking the file with his bishop.) Is there anything a bishop pair can't do? Anand dented Leko's Sveshnikov shield and ran his b-pawn for a solid plus, but had no chance of winning the exchange-up endgame with all the pawns on one side.

Adams-Kasimdzhanov was a meandering line of the Sveshnikov. It shows what happens with both sides get everything they want and then can't do anything with it. Nice knight on d5. So? Nice ..f5 break. And? White's Bb3 and Nc3 just sit there waiting for exchanges that never come. If Adams plays on with 27.Qh3, Black shouldn't be worse with the open g-file and central phalanx.

You don't have to pronounce it, just check it out. Black Belt contributor (and US Champion) Hikaru Nakamura is playing in a powerful invitational in Armenia Oct 1-11. (Official site) The rest of the field: Ivanchuk, Aronian, Sokolov, Dreev, Bologan, Asrian, Bu Xiangzhi, Anastasian, Macieja. That's a big category 17 (2667 avg.) at the same time as the FIDE WCh!?

Hikaru drew in the first round with Asrian, who escaped with a miracle draw. Ivanchuk apparently spaced out and lost on time in a bishop endgame despite a 30-second increment. Thinking about ways to win such things will earn you losses, but this was extreme.

Pairings: Svidler-Topalov 0-1, Polgar-Morozevich 1/2, Adams-Kasimdzhanov 1/2, Anand-Leko 1/2. Topalov leads with an amazing 3.5/4, Svidler is a half-point behind. That makes today's game between them a biggie. They've played three classical games in the past two years, two draws and a win for Svidler at Corus in 2004, though Topalov has a +1 score if you go back to 1998-99. They drew an exciting game in Dortmund this year. Adams-Kasimdzhanov is a rematch of the 2004 FIDE WCh final. Anand should try to get back on track against Leko so we'll soon find out if the Hungarian's form is back or not.

Off-day trivia: Topalov stayed with his routine of breakfast in the hotel, a walk, and preparation. He also bought a chaturanga-themed chess set. Svidler and Adams ate in the center of town and did some shopping. Anand and Morozevich walked around the lake - not together. Leko and Polgar ate in the hotel with their analysis teams.

Argentina's largest newspaper, Clarín, has been running daily reports of moderate depth on the San Luis world championship. But just about every day they have also run an accompanying color piece. One was on "the strange Mr. Ilyumzhinov," another on doping control in chess, and today they tackle the very low number of spectators, which was made painfully obvious from some of the photos. Fewer than 200 people have come each day to the $3.3 million dollar, specially built venue that can seat 860. (It looks like a lot fewer than 200.)

They blame this on the internet (as usual, as if the desire to watch games live instead of replaying them a few minutes later is so strong people would otherwise leave their homes), the games taking place during work hours, and on the fact that the games are being locally televised live with commentary by Argentine WGM Claudia Amura and her husband, Mexican GM Gilberto Hernández. The playing site is sixteen kilometers (10 miles) from town. Almost nobody has come from outside the area, they say. Entry is five pesos (less than two dollars) per day and there is a daily raffle for a home appliance. This page has a good picture of the new building, click it to enlarge.

Clarín chess columnist GM Pablo Zarnicki tried to explain whether or not this is a "real" world championship ("it depends") and chastised the organizers for charging $40 to watch the games live on the official site. Other tidbits from various local reports: Topalov and Kasimdzhanov were both accepting when asked about the drug testing, saying they were okay with it if it was necessary. Kasim said he'd been tested twice in the past with no trouble. The top three finishers in San Luis will be tested, along with someone randomly selected.

Kasimdzhanov said he was delighted to finally beat Anand for the first time. The day before, after losing to Polgar, Kasimdzhanov had stormed out of the hall. Explaining himself after round four, the Uzbekistani said "it never happened to me before in my career. I was losing, then I had a chance to win, then I blundered horribly. That's why I left like that." Despite his loss to Kasimdzhanov, Anand posed for photos and signed autographs.

After his win over Morozevich, Svidler made typically self-critical comments, saying he had "played the middlegame poorly. I didn't know what to do and got off track." Leko, after beating Polgar in a miniature, on his poor start: "I put pressure on myself at the start and distanced myself from the title. Now I just want to play some good games." As mentioned elsewhere, Anand had prepared his 23.Qd2! against Adams when getting ready for Kamsky in 1995 and later when preparing to meet Karpov in Lausanne in 1998.

The 2005 US Scrabble championship is on ESPN right now. Caissa wept. This isn't even the world championship, which will be in November. That Scrabble is a trademarked game with the vested interest of a manufacturer/sponsor certainly helps it. And it probably has greater penetration in the US than chess and is of course much more accessible for spectators. Chess's greatest weakness in the mass media has always been that if you don't know how to play competently you may as well be watching Queer Eye in Cambodian.

So, did I miss anything? I took a much-needed break to see some music yesterday. (Interpol sucked, New York Dolls were amazing for being ancient, and The Killers were good but need to fire their sound guys. Covering a Bowie tune always earns bonus points.) Going to see Beck tonight and, more importantly, the Raveonettes.

Yow, this tournament is wild and crazy. No short draws yesterday; no draws at all! Fighting spirit combined with some uneven play has resulted in an entertaining high-tension bloodbath. Only an unheard of 37% of the games have been drawn after four rounds and there hasn't been a draw in the past two rounds. In the last world championship tournament comparable to this one, in 1948, after 16 games 44% had been drawn. This pace won't be maintained, but it's indicative of how all the players are taking each game seriously.

Topalov won yet again, playing an impressive game against Adams. The Bulgarian's handling of initiative is truly fearsome these days, absolutely relentless. His h5-Bf5-Bc2-Qe4 maneuver will bring cheer to the hearts of weekend hackers everywhere. Play for mate!

Leko finally put someone away with white in the Sicilian, combining a strong opening initiative with a little taste of Polgar's own medicine, a piece sac on b5. 18..Nh5 looks very un-Judit-like; the f4 pawn isn't consequent. This may have been a case of the old saying, the hardest moves to visualize are diagonal retreats. If White doesn't have 25.Bg1! Black holds on with pressure against c2, although the position is still terrible. The hole on d6 is fatal in the final position, quite instructive to have it last that long.

Kasimdzhanov passed his opening test and then some. He innovated against Anand in the Najdorf and went on to win a very nice attacking game. Anand played riskily, giving the white queen a dominating presence in the center with 20..Nc4?! and relied on tactical tricks (26..Rxf2). Kasim remained cool and held Black off until he could counterattack against Black's wide-open king. The white queen on e5 and the black queen on b4 tell the story. Kasimdzhanov played Bh5 twice. The first time it was a novelty that prevented the maneuver ..Ng6-..Nf4. The second time it was a pretty winning blow, offering the g2 pawn with check.

Morozevich held a strong initiative against Svidler for most of the game but was outplayed in the heavy-piece ending. Moro employed one of his favorite tricks with 30.Rhc2, a quick switch to the other side. It might have been worth staying on the kingside with 30.h5 g5 31.Qg4, although that f4 knight is a monster. Nice technical finish by Svidler and Moro's play continues to look tired. This unusual line of the Saemisch KID has a WCh pedigree. Both Smyslov (58) and Tal (61) tried 6..a6 against Botvinnik.

See round 4 preview for links to other coverage.

Pairings: Kasimdzhanov-Anand, Topalov-Adams, Leko-Polgar, Morozevich-Svidler. Anand and Topalov lead on +2. Results, games, pics, and Short comments on round 3 at ChessBase. Some of my quick notes and comments on yesterday's games here. Official site here. Other regular news at TWIC, Chesspro.ru (including the standard-setting annotations of my main man, Sergey Shipov), The Chess Drum (scroll down to round reports) (ick, a java scroll!), Susan Polgar, and noticias en español.

Anand and Topalov confirmed their front-runner status while Leko is out of the running for the world title. Even if he comes into form, he's not going to go +4 or +5 the rest of the way in this field. I really thought he'd be tough here, but either he was in terrible form to start or the missed opportunity in round one crippled his confidence. Perhaps he didn't follow his old training regimen.

Round 4 might see some GM draws as leaders consolidate and losers burn a white to lick wounds. Topalov is, as usual, the exception, and he also has white (though both his wins have come with black). Kasimdzhanov's opening prep gets a test as he faces Anand.